# external-collection

> Claude/Codex skill by [@zilliztech](https://omgskills.com/library/zilliztech/index.md) · 3 stars · Updated 2026-10-23

Use when the user wants to trigger, describe, or list refresh jobs for an external collection (a collection backed by an external data source such as Vector Lake). Note this is the data-plane refresh workflow, not collection CRUD -- for create/drop/load see the collection skill.

Tags: claude-code, claude-code-skill, codex, openai, plugin, skill, vector-database, zilliz, zilliz-cloud

## Install

```sh
git clone https://github.com/zilliztech/zilliz-plugin /tmp/zilliz-plugin && ln -s /tmp/zilliz-plugin/plugins/zilliz/skills/external-collection ~/.claude/skills/external-collection
```

## From README

Prerequisites CLI installed, logged in, and cluster context set (see skill). The target collection must already exist as an external collection (created with an externalSource / externalSpec schema in the collection skill). Plain in-place collections do not have refresh jobs. The cluster must be running a kite-coordinator build that exposes /v2/vectordb/jobs/externalcollection/ (PR \#5735 or later). On older data planes the API returns 404 -- in that case ask the user to upgrade the cluster. Commands Reference The external-collection resource has a single operation, refresh, with three actions: trigger, describe, and list. All three are data-plane calls and inherit the database from the current context unless overridden with --database. Trigger a refresh job trigger returns the new jobId. Use it with refresh describe to poll status.

## Links

- HTML page: https://omgskills.com/library/zilliztech/zilliz-plugin/plugins/zilliz/skills/external-collection/
- GitHub: https://github.com/zilliztech/zilliz-plugin
- Author: [@zilliztech](https://omgskills.com/library/zilliztech/index.md)

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